XenApp 6 to be released Marts 24th
Last week Citrix announced the release of XenApp 6 on Marts 24th. With less than 10 days to go I want to summarize some of the great new features in the upcoming release.
The last months I have had the opportunity to play around with the tech preview of XenApp 6 in my lab. I’m surprised how many great new features will be added in XenApp 6. Now we just ned to see the stability and scaling in real-life.
First of all XenApp 6 will support Windows Server 2008 R2. Citrix has rewritten the code-base to fully support Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 architecture.
I have made a list highlighting most of the new features:
- Citrix Receiver architecture for Windows, Mac and Linux
- New Citrix Receiver for Windows, Mac and Linux.
- Single auto-updating client using plug-ins.
- App-V integration
- Stream and publish App-V packages.
- Subscribe to App-V packages using Dazzle.
- Manage App-V client using the Citrix Receiver.
- HDX RealTime audio
- Enhanced audio codec reduces bandwidth by 90%.
- Preserving CD quality sound.
- New “Optimized for speech” codec.
- Clear audio quality to softphone and voice chat (less than 20 Kbps).
- Echo cancellation for VoIP softphone.
- HDX RealTime collaboration
- Support for Microsoft Office Communicator video and audio conference.
- WebCam support.
- HDX Plug-n-Play enhanced color and monitor support
- HDX Plug-n-Play 32-bit graphics support.
- Alpha-channel graphics enabled.
- Uses same bandwidth as 24-bit session.
- Enhanced application compatibility.
- DirectX/Direct3D hardware acceleration.
- Simplified installation
- Role-based installation wizard.
- Automated pre-requisite installation.
- Configuration performed after installation.
- Auto-configuration using group policies.
- Single management console
- Redesigned based on MMC 3.0.
- Still called Citrix Delivery Services Console
- Active Directory Group Policy integration
- Policy-based management of XenApp.
- Group Policy templates and integration. Rapid server, application and user access configuration.
- PowerShell 2.0
- PowerShell replaces MFCOM.
- Automate XenApp management tasks. XenApp SDK using PowerShell.
- Server Groups/Worker Groups
- Simplified application workload/silo management.
- Publish application to server groups
- Assign policies to server groups
- Group preference and fail-over (instead of zone)
- New enhanced License Management
- New License Management Console.
- License reporting in EdgeSight.
- User profile streaming
- Load individual profile settings on-demand or download in the background
- Updated on the fly, no need to logoff for update.
- Reduces logon time.
- Application Isolation for Windows services
- Windows services can now be profiled and streamed.
- Dazzle v1.1
- Subscribe App-V packages.
- User mobility
- Back to the old “Any, any, any” concept.
- Universal SmartPhone support.
- New Citrix receiver for iPhone.
- Receiver for Windows mobile.
- Receiver for Android.
This is properly not a complete list and some of the features may be subject to change in the final release.
For a detailed comparison to older versions check out the Comparative Feature Matrix (http://www.citrix.com/site/resources/dynamic/salesdocs/Citrix-XenApp-Comparative-Feature-Matrix.pdf).
Jacob Berg
